I feel as if I’m on a high wire trying to remain balanced while having a panic attack. Today two one bedrooms in my building that went on the market at the same time as mine or after closed. One is smaller, the living room, bedroom and bath not as nice but the kitchen is much nicer and it has river and park views. It’s maintenance is lower too which really angers me as apartments on that line command top dollar for the view. The other is much nicer.
I think I’m allowed to sulk about this. If the damn contractor had only listened to me and did only the renovations I told him to do in a timely manner I would have at least been in contract by now. But no he had to express his artistic side and then go into a major depression while he had my money.
It’s cost me a lot to have a valueless apartment and until the apartment goes into contract I believe its value to be zilch. Actually it costs me over $1200 each month so until I sell it has a negative value.
Excuse me for not appreciating my surroundings today. This is a big chunk of my future I’m focused on. For reasons that will be explained in my article that will be published in July I don’t have the greatest work record.
Which makes me laugh half the time as I have coordinated more projects for well known progressive agencies for free or minimal money always because the person they hired for mucho money couldn’t do the job. The “great” jobs promised me never came through. Still I believed. I am an absurd optimist and have no idea why.
It’s the reason I don’t do volunteer work anymore. I was always so nice, so smart, so able to do the work, so willing to work extra hours, so good, such a great trainer and motivator, and just a tenth of a beat off. I’m not even sure that I appeared that but I must have had a sign “take advantage of me, please.”
I could afford to do this in the late 90’s and early 00’s, but now I have a reached a point where my future is important to me. I was never poor in youth and don’t want to be in older age.
When I learned about non verbal learning disorders (NLD) so many things began to make sense. Honestly I don’t feel as if I truly suffer from most of these problems anymore as I learned to compensate years ago but never quite trusted my “compensation” techniques. I was told I hadn’t learned to compensate but to cope yet when I thought about it or discussed it with other doctors it was the same thing.
Still I let the testing psychologist play a too large role in my life. I decided not to see him as there would be no satisfaction in that. When I Googled him nothing came up and I know people with his job love to be published or have publicity or….
What could I say? I’m Pia Savage and you’re not? My blog was a monster for almost two years until I decided to tame the wild courting as I was truly seeking my destiny? I have had over 50 article published under another name, and am beginning to be published under Pia?
Ultimately I would have just satisfied my thirst for revenge and to show him how wrong he was when he pronounced me profoundly learning disabled.
That’s different than being given a mental illness diagnosis as it’s basically saying I’m unable to learn; to be a productive member of society. i have something that can’t be cured with medication and therapy.
I should have understood how wrong he was when I went to grad school and graduated with a 3.84 cum and outstanding field placement evaluation but grades feel worthless when you hear students tell professors they will only settle for “A”s and don’t feel they have to work for them. It was social work school and the height of political correctness and I feel so gypped of a chance to have really excelled in a difficult program. That was my neurotic need, and I realize it’s partially absurd and partially reality based. Grad school should be intellectually challenging. Not just the full year research course, ego object and self, and my independent study on elder abuse.
One big measure of my life is thin, average, a bit heavy, etc., and those were average, thin years. Age hadn’t caught up with me and my fellow students thought of me as younger than I was, brighter than thou or the one who would be chosen to lead presentations as I would know everybody’s part (if it didn’t pay I was brilliant at it) and selfish as I said I wouldn’t have kids. I never gave my age or the reasons why.
Given my history–and I haven’t told much of it though this blog seems endless–I think I deserve to be paid for many things. I don’t believe in unpaid internships or field placements. I know I was exploited. And if you’re going to have a volunteer “save” a project, you better find money in the budget to pay her.
I can’t believe how I undervalued myself and let myself be used and tossed. I won’t say the names of the agencies as they’re good ones with new staffs. I always feel that I should be apologizing for not doing volunteer work but I promised myself I won’t until I’m paid well for something or am old and need something to do.
I was reading a board where people with NLD were talking about the hard time they had getting jobs. I never did. My father would scream at me to work for the phone company when I would work for a company that worked for the phone company and the managers would tell me to apply. I didn’t understand that if they told me to apply they would serve as my references, get me the job, be my rabbis so to speak.
Clueless, I’m so clueless when it comes to myself and so insightful when it comes to other people. But that’s hard to understand and I’m sure most people, who don’t know me personally, think I’m clueless when it comes to other people.
I am different than many people with NLD as I work well by myself but equally well or better with people–large groups of people. I’m not reclusive nor a solitary person though I have always required a day or a night of alone time
I decided to devote the next three months to writing a book that tries to explain NLD by telling my story. The whole story from childhood to now. I know three months isn’t enough but it would just be a first draft and I’m told that one of my problems is I never mastered the necessary shitty first draft.
It’s easier to work on this outside New York and now that W–the male half of my landlord/friends–installed a router I can work from the patio. I bought ergonomically correct beach chairs as the first possession for my new home I hope to buy in the fall or winter. And I might buy a house as long as it’s in a condo community or has pebbles instead of grass and the community has a pool.
Please hope that my apartment sells. I deserve that. And I deserve to go into the later part of my 50’s knowing that my older age will be secure. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with liking money or the things that it brings.
When you have the scattered work record I have you have to worry about the cost of health insurance and getting sick. When I’m eligible for Medicare I expect to have pay a lot for a supplement. I have never believed this is an easy country or that you get something for nothing. I have never lived off the “system” and never want to
Damn I wish that quarters spent doing meaningful internships, field placements and volunteer work counted for Social Security. More than that I wish I hadn’t undervalued myself.
When people ask me to describe you, the first thing I always say is “ergonomically correct.” 🙂
Good luck with the book.
And please get a place with grass. That way, if I move to the beach, you can hire me to mow your lawn.